Word: monsoon
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...mountains, the himals (snow peaks) and the foothills affect the life of every person in Nepal. They shelter the country from icy Tibetan blasts in the winter and protect it from the severity of the monsoon in summer. Not only do they contribute a large part to the extraordinary beauty of this small kingdom, but they also shape many of the religious beliefs of the Nepalese...
Besides endangering lives in poor countries, "superaffluence"--this is Brown's term--threatens the natural balance. Pollution is no longer a localized problem: auto and factory exhausts in North America and Europe seem to be changing the winds, pushing the monsoon rains off Asian cropland into the sea. Poor countries are destroying their share of their environment too: woodcutters are stripping India of its forests; herders in the Subsahara are helping the desert spread; careless farmers in Pakistan are washing away their best soil and its covering, parlaying their land into a dust bowl...
...rich fields of India's Rejasthan state, where the monsoon rains usually sweep in faithfully each summer, the rice crop has been devastated by the first drought in years. Eastward on the Indian subcontinent, great floods have ruined the Bangladesh harvest. Far off in Africa's Sahel region, six years of drought have only recently been interrupted by rain. In the U.S., both the corn and soybean crops will fall far below expectations this year because of a freakish succession of excess spring rains, summer drought and early fall frost...
...earth is experiencing a basic change in its weather, which could cause prolonged droughts throughout the hunger belt. About ten years ago, scientists began noting that the high-altitude winds that ring the North Pole have shifted south, changing weather patterns throughout the world. Part of India's monsoon rains are now dropping uselessly into the ocean. In the past six years, the Sahara has expanded 100 miles southward in some places. Scientists are baffled by the phenomenon, but some suspect it may be caused by sun spots or increased carbon dioxide and dust in the atmosphere...
Even a heavy monsoon would not end the power shortages. If India's generators ran at full capacity, they still could not supply all the electricity the nation needs. The architects of India's five-year plans have encouraged an unbalanced industrial development; in the past five years, demand for electricity grew by 70%, but generating capacity increased only 30%. Providing adequate power for a country that is expected to almost double its population by the year 2000 is at present a problem without a solution...